The bumps in the highway seemed to keep time with her sister’s silence. Finally, Ava said, “Look, talking out our problems is you, not me. I just want to hang out with my sister tonight and watch a movie and maybe eat my own carton of Ben & Jerry’s…after you spend six or seven hours in the car saving the world.”

Olivia drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Maybe this was Ava keeping herself together to get through the day. She didn’t care if it took two tubs of Ben & Jerry’s, she wasn’t leaving her sister tonight until she had a better understanding of what was going on.

They hung on the phone another few minutes, but Ava made it clear through her choice of conversation she didn’t want to talk about Wes any longer. Instead, she talked about some of the favorite properties she’d seen in the last week. When they hung up, Olivia was left to contemplate what might have gone wrong. Wes and Ava had been a fairy-tale couple, beautiful and successful and vibrant.

She thought of something Aunt Becky had said when Olivia was watching her work at the potter’s wheel. “If you rely only on your eyes to tell you the story, you’ll never know it. If you want to create something sturdy, you’ve got to get your hands dirty. Gotta feel the weaknesses against your fingertips and work them out.”

When it came to creating pottery, Olivia was no artist, at least not yet, but she understood what her aunt was talking about. And she suspected this was her sister’s problem more than anything. At one point or another, Ava had stopped wanting to get her hands dirty.

Olivia drove another hour and a half, adjusting her wipers up and down as she drove through patches of light and heavy rain without ever leaving it behind. Sometimes the world felt so soggy, it seemed as if it would never dry out. With her bladder about to get the best of her and her tank down to less than a quarter, she took the first exit with a decent-looking gas station.

Under a covered roof, she filled up her tank and stretched, listening to the dance of the rain on the metal awning ten feet above her. If the sun didn’t come out soon, she was going to need a megalodon-size coffee to get her through the drive home. Wait. What’re you thinking? No, you won’t. The two dogs and cat who’d be her travel companions home would energize her more than any cup of coffee ever would.

She finished up, made a quick trip inside, and was driving out the side entrance of the gas station when her engine knocked loud enough that the steering wheel shook her hands. She hardly had time to react before the Cruze jolted forward, then died, rolling to a stop.